Hartley 28, Columbus Academy 7

Thursday

Sep 1, 2011 at 12:01 AMSep 19, 2011 at 6:15 PM

Playing its first home game since winning the Division IV state championship last season, the Hartley High School football team improved to 2-0 with a 28-7 win over Columbus Academy on Friday, Sept. 2.

Playing its first home game since winning the Division IV state championship last season, the Hartley High School football team improved to 2-0 with a 28-7 win over Columbus Academy on Friday, Sept. 2.

Rotating six running backs on a hot and humid night, Hartley used a ball-control offense and rushed 44 times for 285 yards, scoring touchdowns in each quarter with drives of five, four, 11 and 12 plays.

Anthony Allwein (9 yards on two carries), Marcellus Calhoun (43 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries), Alonzo Saxton (38 yards on four carries), Dominique Scott (4 yards on two carries), JaWaun Woodley (108 yards and one touchdown on 10 carries) and Jarrod Zang (83 yards on 12 carries) shared the ball and kept Academy's defense on the field for long stretches of time while keeping Hartley's defense fresh.

"We saw the weather forecast and knew it would be hot and knew their depth wasn't as good as ours," Hartley coach Brad Burchfield said. "We wanted to run the ball and run a lot of plays, wear them down and make it a battle of attrition."

Academy dropped to 1-1.

"We got to spread the ball around tonight," Woodley said. "Academy doesn't have as many players as we do. This is our practice field and we were out here in the heat all summer and knew it would be hot tonight, so we just kept pounding the ball."

Hartley ran 26 plays on offense in the second half -- all on the ground -- and gained 173 yards. Academy's offense had just seven plays in the second half for 78 yards.

Brandewie completed two passes on a four-play drive late in the first half. A 26-yard screen pass to Saxton advanced Hartley to the Academy 33-yard line. Two plays later, Brandewie found tight end Jacob Matuska in the corner of the end zone for a 6-yard touchdown with 6 seconds remaining in the half.

"That touchdown at the end of the half was crucial for us," Burchfield said. "It came after a missed field goal by Academy and gave us a lift."

Calhoun opened the scoring with a 16-yard touchdown run on the game's opening drive to give Hartley a 7-0 lead less than three minutes into the game.

Hartley continued to dominate the line of scrimmage in the second half.

The Hawks drove 62 yards on 12 plays to open the third quarter, with Woodley scoring on a 14-yard run to extend the lead to 21-0 with 6:44 remaining in the quarter.

Academy quarterback Jacob Wilson completed seven of 16 passes for 67 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

Jared Harris, who rushed for 163 yards in Academy's 49-27 win over Zanesville Maysville on Aug. 26, was held to 58 yards on 15 carries.

The Vikings' best drive of the game went 80 yards on 15 plays, with Harris catching a 1-yard touchdown pass from Wilson that cut Hartley's lead to 21-7 with 9:54 seconds remaining in the game.

Calhoun closed the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run that capped a 15-play, 80-yard drive for the Hawks.

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